On Thursday, February 28, the Asper Centre hosted Professor Y. Y. Brandon Chen for a Constitutional Roundtable titled “Toward a Substantive Understanding of Citizenship in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms”. Chen is a lawyer and social worker by training, and is completing his SJD at UTLaw. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, focusing his research on public law, health, and migration. Chen was also an Asper Centre clinic student in 2009 while a pursuing his JD at UTLaw.

For the Roundtable, Professor Chen presented an argument for a more inclusive judicial definition of Canadian citizenship within the Charter. The first part of his presentation focused on the three sections of the Charter that explicitly limit rights to citizenship – sections 3, 6, and 23. He argues that courts have relied on Federal statutes’ definitions of citizenship to inform their understandings of citizenship, resulting in a large number of people being inadequately protected. Chen’s stance is that Courts should be reading these sections of the Charter in a more purposive manner in an attempt to include non-citizen groups who are also entitled to the same degree of protection.

Chen posed two questions in relation to s.3, s.6 and s.23. Firstly, should the meaning of “citizen of Canada” depend on legislative definition? If so, are we allowing Parliament to skirt its Charter obligations? Secondly, he asks what a judicially constructed definition of citizenship would look like.

Chen proposed that citizenship can be understood as membership in a state. More specifically, it is the desire to foster a deep connection to a society. This idea is supported by social science research and the Supreme Court in the case of Ontario v Winner [1951] SCR 887. However, the present legislative definition of citizenship is not broad enough to encompass all groups of people who possess these qualities. There are non-citizens with similar interests and relationships to the Canadian state that are entitled to the protection of the Canadian government under this definition.

The second part of Chen’s legal argument was focused on how s.15 of the Charter interprets citizenship as an analogous ground of protection. Currently, the court only targets policies that draw a clear line between citizenship and non-citizenship. For example, in Toussaint v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2011 CAF 208, the Federal Court of Appeal rejected a claim that a law discriminated against non-citizens simply because other non-citizen groups are protected by the law. This is a simplistic line of argument that tends to erase the distinct groups that exist under the non-citizen category, such as migrant workers, international students, and permanent residents. Despite their universal non-citizen legal status, these groups receive differential rights from the government.

Chen emphasized that Canadian courts have ruled that discrimination based on one type of disability is still disability discrimination, even if other types of disabilities are protected. In recognizing that there are different non-citizen groups who receive differential treatment, the same logic should be applied to them.

Overall, Professor Chen presented a compelling argument for the courts to understand citizenship in a way that more actively protects individuals’ rights. In questioning the courts’ reliance on Parliament’s definition of citizenship, he opened up the possibility of protecting more individuals under the Charter who are already substantive members of Canadian society. Furthermore, in challenging the normative line between citizenship and non-citizenship under s.15, Professor Chen advocates for a more nuanced and complex understanding of differential (non)citizenship experiences.

Michelle Huang and Jeffrey Wang are 1L JD Candidates at the Faculty of Law. They are also members of the Asper Centre Immigration & Refugee Law student working group this year.

The Asper Centre’s Executive Director Cheryl Milne will be among the 2019 recipients of the Law Society of Ontario Medal, which recognizes and lauds “exceptional career achievements and contributions to their communities.”

Cheryl Milne’s citation says she “has had a profound and unique influence on the Canadian legal landscape as a child rights advocate. She is a leading constitutional and Charter rights litigator, an innovative experiential legal educator, and a generous legal community volunteer. She provided front-line legal services to children and teenagers across a wide range of legal needs for many years and now leads constitutional advocacy in an academic centre she helped to create.”

The Asper Centre’s former Constitutional-Litigator-In-Residence, Susan Ursel and the Faculty of Law’s Professor Carol Rogerson are also medal recipients. The award ceremony will take place later this spring on May 22 2019.

In 2018 the Ontario government issued a directive to repeal the 2015 sexual education curriculum and replace it with the 2010 curriculum, which had the same sexual education content as the 1998 curriculum. The previous curriculum did not include among other things consent, gender identity and expression, cyberbully or sexting. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), and a parent of a child affected brought two applications to judicially review this directive, which essentially required the determination of one question: whether the directive and the events surrounding the decision infringed the Charter rights of teachers, students, and/or parents.

Arguments were made regarding sections 2(b), 7 and 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this case by the ETFO and the CCLA. Several interveners also took part to provide other perspectives including: Grand Council of Treaty 3, Justice for Children and Youth and Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario. This article provides my opinion on the Charter analysis provided by the court, but I will note there was also a discussion of jurisdiction and standing.

I understand how the court came to dismiss the applications, but I still believe it was incredibly important that the case was brought. We need queer youth, young women and girls and survivors of sexual violence to know we stand with them. The court did clarify that teachers can teach from the 2015 curriculum with no fear of professional repercussions and in many ways, that is a win for students with willing teachers. But the concern remains for students of teachers unwilling to teach this content for personal reasons or because of the opinions of those around them.

2(b) – Freedom of Expression

In addressing the section 2(b) freedom of expression analysis, the court examined the combination of the removal of topics from the curriculum along with statements made by members of the government and the creation of a website which allowed for the submission of information on teachers and classrooms. The complainants alleged that this constellation of factors established a violation of teachers’ freedom of expression by preventing them from teaching facets of the 2015 curriculum which were removed by the replacement with the 2010 curriculum.

In finding that there was no 2(b) violation, the judge appears to rely on the fact that counsel clarified the positions of the Minister in respect to what was fair game for teachers to teach under the new curriculum. I am frustrated by this result as this clarification would not have come had this not been brought to court and runs counter to the common understanding of the statements made by the government, which the court itself called “Ill-considered”. However, I expect some teachers will find solace in this decision as it confirms their ability to provide necessary information on consent, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexting and cyberbullying to their students without fear of professional sanctions.

7 – Guarantee to Life, Liberty and Security of the Person

While working with the Asper Centre, within our working group, I focused on the s. 7 arguments and I knew this would be a difficult argument to make but I hadn’t expected the court’s focus on a lack of evidence of harm stemming from the 2010 curriculum. Jurisprudence on s. 7 does not require direct scientific evidence, but rather a sufficient casual connection is enough to draw a reasonable inference on a balance of probabilities.

In my mind, every sexual assault which was committed by a person who had been taught sex ed in Ontario during the time period the 2010 curriculum was in use or was perpetrated against someone had been taught sex ed in Ontario during that time arguably had a link to the curriculum. This is due to a lack of education around the requirement of consent to engage in sexual activity. I thought of the young men and women who didn’t know they needed to say yes, didn’t know how to say no or didn’t know what to do when their no or lack of yes meant nothing to someone else. I think of the young men and women now having to face the reality of having engaged in sexual misconduct or assault because no one taught them any better in a world which rewards toxic masculinity and rape culture and encourages women to bite their tongue and let it go.

And so, I knew this argument would be hard to make because a government does not have a positive burden to ensure life, liberty and security of the person and because a policy of one government does not bind the next, but I hadn’t expected part of the issue to be a conceived lack of harm.

15(1) – Equality

In addressing the s 15(1) arguments the court references the characterization of the curriculum as a benefit which is not available to certain groups however, does not address this point specifically in its reasons. The court reiterates the jurisprudence surrounding the fact that the repeal of a policy does not constitute a Charter violation if it removes a benefit that previously existed. However, my understanding of the framing of the issue as a benefit which is not available to certain groups such as LGBTQ students is a desire to see the current curriculum, separate from the repeal itself, as a violation.

By providing a sexual education curriculum which does not teach content relevant to diverse gender identities or sexual orientations, cis and straight students are receiving a benefit from the government that other students cannot receive. That benefit is a sexual education curriculum which is relevant to them. The court does not address the s. 15 claim from this angle, addressing only the lack of requirement to continue to provide a benefit that had previously been received.

I want to end this article by saying that I and many others will continue to stand with the students impacted by the repeal and this decision and continue to do what we can to support them and their access to the necessary information they are no longer guaranteed in the classroom. Therefore, I’ve provided a list of links below to resources that are working to fill this gap:

Leslie Anne St. Amour is 2L JD Candidate at the Faculty of Law and a former Asper Centre clinic student. [read Leslie Anne’s previous blog post reflecting on her work on this case as an Asper Centre Clinic student.]

The Asper Centre is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a Law Foundation of Ontario responsive grant to develop online guides to the police oversight procedures in Ontario. This forms part of our ongoing work developing national online guides about the police oversight procedures in all of Canada.

The Law Foundation grant will fund the portion of our project focused on the complaints procedures of the various oversight bodies in Ontario, as well as the RCMP, our federal police force that has a marked presence in Ontario. The funds will help the Asper Centre undertake consultations with relevant stakeholders and communities, in order to ascertain needs, which will inform the development of the guides as well as our dissemination plan for the guides. The Foundation grant will also support the translation of the guides into French, Ojibwe and Oji-Cree as well as thedesign of the accessible PDF guides and the development and maintenance of a web-platform that will house the guides.

We are immensely grateful for the Law Foundation of Ontario grant, as we believe that this project is very timely and important given the current context of police oversight legislative reforms in Ontario; recent media exposure of issues behind unfounded sexual assault allegations; and, the serious concerns being raised in respect of the treatment of women and girls from First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities as well as the police mishandling of complaints by Indigenous peoples.